MILWAUKEE – The worst thing a team struggling to win – and, more specifically, struggling to score runs – can do is try too hard to make something big happen.
The Nationals have been trying too hard for several weeks now, committing unforced errors in the field, on the bases and at the plate. It seems to be happening on a nightly basis during their current road trip. And tonight it may have come to a head in absolutely agonizing fashion.
Trailing the Brewers at the time 2-0 with one out in the top of the seventh, Lane Thomas drove a ball off the wall in deep right-center. And when it caromed to the side a bit, Thomas had himself an easy triple.
Except third base coach Gary DiSarcina wanted more. He waved Thomas around, shooting for an unlikely inside-the-park home run. And when the Brewers successfully relayed the ball to the plate to nail Thomas for the second out of the inning and the home crowd of 29,609 roared with approval, all the Nationals could do was watch in disbelief as it happened yet again.
"He thought he may have had a shot," manager Davey Martinez said of DiSarcina. "But when you don't score any runs, you try anything you can to get a run across the plate."